Deliver to Edwards, Greece

Deliver to Edwards, Greece

Receiving goods in Greece is rather fraught generally. At a local level the notion persists that everyone knows each other, thus the job of the courier, carrier or postal service is to get the letter, parcel or packet as near as possible and then to rely on local knowledge. I have already described the fact that we only have two days of the week when we can genuinely expect incoming post. This is a complicated function of working hours, ferry timetables and bureaucracy.

Kythera is an island of internal and eternal idiosyncrasies. It is geographically classified as an Ionian island, one of the seven: Corfu, Paxos, Lefcas, Cephalonia, Ithaca, Zachinthos and Kythera. Unlike the other six island, it is not exactly in the Ionian sea, edging the Straights of Maleas and partly facing the Aegean. Unlike the other six islands it is not part of the Ionian Islands' administration but is bureaucratically linked to the civic offices of Pireaus, the port of Athens. Unlike the other islands it is considered part of Athens for telephone purposes and so telephoning Athens is charged as a local call. But, if we have a problem with our telephone system then we now report faults to the Patras office, in the north western Peloponnese. And, as Waldo has found out, as far as deliveries are concerned it is considered to be part of the county of Attica, which is the peninsular where Athens is located, and thus when we purchase anything from Athens the delivery is free in Attica.

We have the added disadvantage, in terms of deliveries, of being some distance up a mountain on a partly unmade road. Local couriers will not venture as far as our house either leaving goods in a vague vicinity of our village on the off-chance that we will call into the supermarket, vegetable shop or foreigner friends' houses, or they telephone when they are approaching our village and meet Waldo as the assigned Hotel Romantica, or they simply do nothing until we call at their office.

Recently Waldo had ordered a new office chair for me and was expecting delivery today. Two days ago we had a telephone call from the Lakonia transport company. They were asking us where to deliver the chair! It turns out that the office products company, that we have dealt with on numerous occasions, had simply asked them to collect the chair and given them basic delivery information: Waldo Edwards and our telephone number! No house address, no street name, no village, to indication of where in Greece it was to be delivered. I gave them our full address, but it was clear that all that was really noted was 'Kythera Island'. Clearly the man's task was to get the goods this far, it would then be over to someone else for the delivery. Waldo telephoned the company to complain about the lack of information given to the delivery company but, despite speaking to someone who spoke excellent English, the concept of such forward planning was beyond the Greek mind.


This morning we were peacefully eating our breakfast when the telephone rang. Expecting it to be a local courier company Waldo answered the 'phone anticipating that we would have to go to a place just outside Potamos to collect the chair. When he failed to understand what was being said, he passed the telephone over to me. All I could hear was a man shouting 'Portobello. Portobello' down the line. Now that is the name of a rather nice bar in the village and I thought that he was trying to get hold of them. I told him it was in Aghia Pelagia village and that we were not in the village, but up the mountain; he had the wrong number. The phone went dead.

Two minutes later it rang again. This time a different voice was on the line. This man told me he was outside Portobello and how to get to my office from there. I explained that it was a house, up the mountain and that he had to come along the beach front, turn up to the Romantika Hotel, and then keep going up, up and up to a big white house on the right hand side of the road. The line went dead.

Two minutes later the telephone rang again. This time the man told me that he was outside the Romantika Hotel and didn't know whether to turn left or right. I told him to keep coming up the mountain, from cement onto asphalt, turn a corner onto a bad road and then after the next corner to a cement road. The phone went dead!

A minute later the telephone rang again. Forward planning or remembering beyond one instruction was clearly not a possibility. This time he was on the tarmac and didn't know where to turn. When one lives among the tarmac tangle of motorways, main roads, double yellow lines and signage it is easy to forget that to the country Greek, the slightest tyre mark on the ground represents a possible road. I told him to turn left and keep going up. Keep going up, always. The line went dead.

Waldo hadn't finished his toast but realised that he would have to interrupt his breakfast and go scouting our mountain for a delivery vehicle. No sooner than he had reversed out of our driveway and reached the first bend then he met a rather large flatbed lorry with open sides - Lakonia Transport Company had arrived! We were amazed that for just 3 Euros they had collected the chair from Athens, driven across to Corinth, down through the Peloponnese to Neapoli, caught the ferry and then come from Diakofti, our little port to our house. I went out to speak with the men; two very happy and polite young men. It is so endearing, that even macho young Greek men will totally ignore the job that they have on hand and step to one side to admire the fantastic view that we have from our house. They breathed in the fresh air, took in the silence and just stood and smiled.

I broke the silence by thanking them for coming this far. I noticed that the lorry had lots of boxes of the same type in them and read one of them. I wasn't sure of my translation 'Food for bees'. I thought it might be 'food from bees' and said, in Greek 'honey'. No, I was told, the honey comes afterwards, this is the food for the bees. One man opened a packet and brought out a wedge of white substance that looked very much like the wax that appears on honey combs. Kytheran honey is acknowledged in Greece as being the best and it costs more than double an ordinary pot of honey; but it is thick and delicious and you only need half as much as most other Greek honey and about 20% of the cheap, thin, runny alternatives. I did not know that bee keepers actually fed bees. I was of the romantic notion that they fed on the nectar of wild herbs and flowers. I guess it is a business as much as anything else and we must be thankful that the disease affecting bees world-wide has not reached this little island.